SB Nation User Blog: BrooklynHorn

The "Narrative"

BrooklynHorn — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:24:48 -0000

The 2007 season is a great experiment, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm hearing a lot of disappointment from fans, as its become fashionable to discuss the parity of college football and conclude that we'll be stuck with a sub-par National Championship match-up, etc., but I'm actually quite fascinated by what will undoubtedly be one of the more educational seasons in college football's recent history.

"The narrative" has been obliterated this season. In fact, every time ESPN tries to stitch it back together, it busts apart at the seams, as if some renegade, paternal force is trying to convert our simple-minded action film into an epic parable. And we're so used to being told what to expect, we're so used to college football's mostly unpredictable landscape being nicely framed and contextualized for us that we feel lost without the usual guidance.

Imagine a world in which players wear no uniforms, there are no traditional powers wielding their influence, sophomore and junior quarterbacks make a name for themselves in October instead of July, and fans simply sit down each Saturday afternoon to watch good football played the way it should be.

If this sounds horrible to you, you are not alone, it certainly sounds horrible to me. My hope is that this season will ultimately help to restructure the way we understand and appreciate college football.

We're about to find out what becomes of college football when it is stripped of an ordered context. Will we take advantage of an opportunity to undo years of media coverage that has prevented this sport from reaching it's meritocratic ideals, or will we simply allow basic human nature to prevail and favor dramatic narrative over actual achievement, which will undoubtedly result in a rather awkward scenario, like a happy ending gratuitously tacked onto a film that clearly should have ended differently.

My money's on the latter, but I should note that I'm not at all cynical about it - to be so would be hypocritical, considering my respective stances on playoff systems and overall parity (both of which, I believe would be bad for the sport).

We watch college football precisely for the uniforms, the bias, the exaggerated love and criticism, and the drama. If you want a rational meritocracy, go watch the NFL (an unfair statement, I know, as some of you can't help but cheer for your alma mater, but whatever). It is in our nature, I believe, to structure and dramatize our happenings, as we are a tribal, us-against-them, kind of people, and college football has brilliantly funneled that into the most satisfying, anthropological hodgepodge of aggression around.

So if the media will undoubtedly try to square peg a round hole, what do you guys suspect will become of the narrative this season? How will we reorganize the college football to balance and make sense of this mess?

Random thoughts

BrooklynHorn — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 05:23:07 -0000

Not that I've earned the kind of status that you should care about my random thoughts, but here are some interesting talking points on a crucial weekend in college football. [Just to get your mind off of OU for a minute]

*At least our misery has company this week. Who would have thought that the NCAA's two most recent champions (Texas and Florida) would both be suffering 2-game losing streaks and both be 0-2 in conference play? Perhaps Peter and Orson can discuss the finer points of suicide logistics on their weekly broadcast.

*Is John David Booty out of the Heisman race? He had an awful game, throwing several picks that resulted in Cardinal touchdowns in the Trojans' historic loss. And considering conventional wisdom states that the Heisman winner shall always play for a contender, maybe this will be the year we see a break in that tradition, after all, given that criteria, who's left? Maybe Darren McFadden will benefit from all the upsets and pull off a 4-loss Heisman.

*The team that may have benefited most from this season of madness is tOSU. They likely have the easiest remaining schedule of all the teams that are still in contention, and while they've been solid in their wins, I think they have more or less inherited their top-ranking. I pretty much feel something similar about Cal. Interesting to think that Cal has a one-game season (USC, at home), and they control their destiny on their road to New Orleans. Which essentially leaves us with a three horse race between LSU, Cal, and tOSU. Wow.

*Three times this season we've seen the "biggest upset in the history of college football." It started with ASU over Michigan, which was the first time a 1AA team actaully beat a ranked team. Ever. Then Syracuse over Louisville was the biggest upset against the spread. Ever. And now Stanford over USC is supposedly the biggest upset against the spread. Ever. All this in about 4 weeks.

*Poor Nebraska... 41-6?

Don't get me wrong, I hated the huskers when they were winning in the mid-90's, but still, I hate to see this stuff happen to such a proud program. They want so badly to be good again. But one wonders if it will ever happen. In a sport that is increasingly defined by parity and a job pool that sees coaches now preferring towns like Gainesville and Los Angeles over traditional communities such as Lincoln or South Bend, will NU ever get back to the glory days?

Evening Open Thread

BrooklynHorn — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 02:46:40 -0000

Sorry guys... Should have had a thread up. Thanks BrooklynHorn. --PB--

USC loses to Stanford.

A&M has come all the way back on OSU and leads by 4 with 8 minutes left.

LSU - Florida is a barnburner...

BONers in Oklahoma

BrooklynHorn — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:40:17 -0000

I'm looking for an assessment of how the OU community is dealing wiht last week's loss and a general sense of Coach Stoops' approval rating.

I haven't read much about it, but their fanbase must have been crazier this week than we've been. They essentially blew what many considered to be the "easiest" path the NC game.

So what's the confidence level for this week? Have they spent all week talking about Texas, or have they been wasting effort bitching about last week? Is there a lot of confidence in Stoops? Or have they figured out that Stoops has lost like 6 out of his last 8 Big Games or so?

Just looking for a little reconnaissance from those of you who are behind enemy lines. I ask only because I've no idea otherwise, and I believe that this has the potential to affect tomorrow's outcome.

But Oklahoma lost too

BrooklynHorn — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:50:57 -0000

So the 2007 Texas Longhorn Football Team will not be hoisting any crystal trophies at season's end...but most of us knew that wasn't going to happen anyway.

However, I'm downright surprised at how much pleasure I'm able to extract right now from the far newer realization that OU will not be doing so either. Because until today, I thought they had a pretty legitimate chance.

The endurance of this season would have been infinitely more difficult if the thieves were in the title hunt until January? But they're not, they screwed it up, so they're out, and they can go f#*k themselves.

That makes me smile at least a little bit on an otherwise frustrating day.

TCU drops another

BrooklynHorn — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 03:50:49 -0000

TCU blew a fourth quarter lead tonight against Air Force. That means the frogs have now dropped two in a row (and when was the last time that happened?).

This obviously hurts Texas' schedule strength, and maybe more importantly the team's credibility, because last Saturday's "confidence-builder" suddenly doesn't look quite so impressive.

My view is that this TCU team is still pretty good, although from what I saw tonight they clearly have problems on offense. This begs the question: does this change our assessment of last week's defensive effort?

I personally think TCU simply got caught in a Thursday night road game 5 days after a devastating loss. They didn't have much fight in them. Lets hope they don't collapse.

Know your enemy

BrooklynHorn — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 19:18:38 -0000

It may be a bit early in the week for this, but I was looking ahead to this Saturday, and I realized how very little I know about Central Florida's football program, other than the fact that George O'Leary is their coach [you may remember him as the guy who was supposed to coach Notre Dame but lied on his resume and ended up at UCF instead]. I also seem to remember some big upset they were involved in a few years ago.

It turns out that upset was over Alabama in 2000, a bit longer ago than I thought. But I remember that when O'Leary took over (2004), people were writing that this was a program on the rise. In fact, he lead them to an 8-5 record in 2005 and an appearance in the Conference USA championship game. Last year, however, they took a step backward, going 4-8 with no notable wins.

Basically, I'm just fishing for some insight from those of you who know more about the program. I imagine PB will give us a pretty thorough preview this week, but I'm curious because this is an interesting Florida school (enrollment of 39,000) that I somehow know very little about.

Also, it may interest all of us that Central Florida began this season with an upset of NC St on the road, but before we put a lot of stock in that, a quick glance at the stat sheet indicates that NC St. was suffering the growing pains of a new coach. The Wolfpack had double the penalty yardage and 2 more turnovers than UCF in a game they otherwise dominated.

Still, this is a team that is 1-0 against BCS opponents this year, and we're getting them on a day that they're breaking in a new stadium.

We cannot overlook this game.

Notre Dame

BrooklynHorn — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 15:37:20 -0000

Very insignificant point of interest here. I noticed that the Notre Dame game this Saturday is on ESPN. Perhaps I'm insane, but I can't remember any ND game ever being televised outside of NBC. I thought they had an exclusive contrast. Wasn't that contract the primary barrier preventing ND from joining the Big10?

Did I miss something?

Also:

Peter, I was curious to hear your take on attending a ND home game. How is the student body reacting after the loss?

Anyone Else Watching

BrooklynHorn — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 01:05:44 -0000

as Louisville prolongs the WTF insanity that has characterized this opening week in college football? At halftime they lead Middle-Tennesse-State by a score of 38-35. This is perhaps the worst performance by a Top10 team yet.

Does this foreshadow a season of bad defense in the BigEast that brings its reputation to a new low? Louisville has not yet forced a punt.

Wow.

The best thing about Austin

BrooklynHorn — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:01:59 -0000

is the fact that there are other things to do than simply to follow football religiously. This apparently isn't the case in Fayetteville, Arkansas where 50 people turned up at the AD's office yesterday to protest Houston Nutt.

If only to have appreciated the absurdity of watching a bunch of hicks literally marching in protest of an offensive scheme, while people in, oh let's say Beirut, are dying right now in political protest, I would have liked to have been there.

It does seem that it was a true protest rally though, complete with hand-made signs and everything.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2741814